Kwanzaa was created by Maulana Karenga of the US Organization in 1966 as the first specifically African American holiday. he said that his goal was to " give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant race. The name Kwanzaa comes from the Swahili phrase
matunda ya kwanza, meaning the first fruit of the harvest. Kwanzaa celebrates the seven princibles of Kwanzaa or the seven princilbes of African Heritage. Kwanzaa last for seven days and each day means something.
- Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
- Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves stand up Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.
- Ujamaa (family): The belief in family and general communal understanding.
- Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
- Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
- Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
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